NY Moments

I’m sorry it’s been a while – I have all good intentions to update this blog and have plenty to write about, but finding the time is tough! We had Ash’s parents here for a few weeks and had a great time exploring the city with them.  Also, we have joined a gym (need to counter the affects of Ben and Jerrys!) so I'm trying to fit that in along with spending way too much time at work.   But we are still living it up in NY - here are some highlights:

The Guggenheim – the architecture is the main highlight but showing in the main rotunda was an exhibition of modern art themed ‘Haunted’. My favourite exhibit was the collection in the impressionist room.
http://www.guggenheim.org/

Central Park – more exploring on a very hot day, we discovered the Hans Christian Andersen statue, the remote control toy sail boat lake, the boathouse and lake with row boats and gondola’s for hire, the fountain you recognise in movies - eg One Fine Day and Ransom - and the mall, a lovely long straight walk through the middle of the park.  We may have snacked on a $2 hotdog with mustard from a cart which we thoroughly enjoyed - we’ve decided that even tofu would taste good with mustard!

Back to Broadway – saw Memphis, a musical tackling the difficult topic of inter-racial relationships in the 50’s but the music was fantastic and once again there was a packed audience who enjoyed the show.
www.memphisthemusical.com/

Ground Zero – wandering around this site for the first time and the size of the construction is awesome. The missing twin towers are still very prominent in NY popular culture and they are often mentioned in the media or reflected in art. In what I would consider to be a real sign of defiance, one of the six skyscrapers to be rebuilt on the site will once again stand well above the NYC skyline – called the Freedom Tower – due to be finished in 2012:

The Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station – loud and busy, there’s seafood a plenty, and for those of us that don’t eat oysters the salmon was lovely too! We enjoyed a champagne (thanks Michelle) while the soup was literally slapped down in front of us.

The Gay Pride Festival and parade which concluded right near our apartment in the West Village. There were crowds of people colourfuly dressed (or not) enjoying the atmosphere.  Ash enjoyed the sights from our ‘terrace’ (fire escape) and as you can imagine there were plenty!

Strand Hotel Rooftop bar - perfect views of the Empire State Building while you sit back on a lounge and sip cocktails

A walk from Jersey City to Hoboken – we headed on the “Path” train under the Hudson and 1 stop later we were in Jersey City, New Jersey. As the sun was setting on Manhattan we wandered down a new-ish waterfront walkway 30mins to Hoboken where we had a surprisingly good meal at the Clam Broth House – I ate a boar bolognaise – we plan to go back there with other visitors if they want the trip to Jersey.

The weather has been very hot, much more than I expected, reaching 40deg some days, and the city tends to hold the heat in the buildings and especially the subway stations which I had described to me today as like walking into a giant mouth (hot and moist!).  We are making the most of our air-con and received our first electricity bill yesterday which (thankfully) didn't send us broke :)   Tomorrow we are taking our first trip out of town to the beach on Long Island, about a 1 hour train journey.  I'm sure it will make its own blog.

We have visitors regularly now until September and I’m very excited to explore more of NY with them all.  Our next friends arrive on Thursday and their visit will include another afternoon at the baseball - it looks like I’m becoming a Yankees fan!

The Cable Guy

One of the first things we organised when we moved in was connecting our cable. This would allow us to stop stealing wireless internet from the café downstairs (which was fine, until they closed at around 10pm and we lost connection) and also give us nearly 1000 channels to watch on our 2 new tv's.

(yes - someone wanted 2! - well it does make sense when one of us wants to watch "So You Think You Can Dance" and the other one wants "The 10 deadliest military weapons used in Vietnam", and tv's are relatively cheap here… but I digress).

In what seemed a much more efficient process than ordering pay tv at home, we ordered online, provided 3 possible time slots for the 'guy' to come and hook us up, then we received an email confirmation that 'he' would be there in one of those suggested times. It was one of the least painful experiences we have had in our relocation, hassle free, 'he' turned up, connected everything and it was all done.

We now have more tv viewing options than you can imagine. Scrolling through the guide list to find something of interest takes about 8 mins! And sometimes, believe it or not, I still can't find something worth watching. More and more channels are getting an 'on demand' option and we have the DVR option so can record as well and have a backlog of movies to catch up on when we have a moment. I have always enjoyed a dose of reality tv trash and one of my new favourites is called "The Millionaire Matchmaker" - classic! I'm addicted :) Another one, not sure if you have at home yet, but you probably will get is "Losing it with Jillian" (trainer from the Biggest Loser) - I cry in every episode… and if its on, I will always watch "the Bachelorette" - Poor Ash, I hear you say, no wonder he wanted a second tv! But it works both ways, with his favourites are usually located on the Military or History Channel… I mean, really, how many black and white WWII docos can one watch??!!

We have been in our lovely little place for a month now and we went through a week of watching films each night but I was exhausted as they became late nights by the time we finished dinner and put the film on, so that wasn't a sustainable habit. We have also been in the right timezone to watch the World Cup soccer and the French Open and Wimbledon so I'm in my element and loving the cable. Ash is not so into watching sport - another good reason for that second tv - this weekend is the start of the Tour de France - bring it on!

The Pain of IKEA

In theory, the concept of IKEA is such a good idea.

In practice, however, I believe most customers leave there many hours after they expected to, frustrated from the system, and not completely satisfied with what they are leaving with. They do that because the thought of going back is so horrible they walk away with what they can.

If you have never been to an IKEA superstore the set up is something like this. Wander through the display showrooms along a designated route through living areas, bedrooms, kitchens picking out pieces of furniture you like along the way. This is the whole top floor of the warehouse and is a massive maze of every product IKEA sell. Then go downstairs through the ‘marketplace’ where small items are collected, everything from saucepans to picture frames, lamps, cushions, storage, rugs, coat hangers, linen……….. Then you hit the warehouse where, if you have recorded all the details correctly upstairs, you should find the furniture you are after, mostly in flat packed boxes which you place on specially designed trolleys and go to the registers. Sound simple?

We spent our time choosing the pieces we were after in the display section. We were fitting out most of our apartment and diligently wrote down the locations where we would find the various products in the warehouse. We actually went through this section twice, the first time to get an idea and the second time to lock in our choices. Each piece was discussed (sometimes with zeal) and decided upon. There were very few staff to assist throughout this area and they weren’t exactly friendly, knowledgeable, or particularly helpful after you had queued to see them. 3 hours later we hit the marketplace and filled a trolley of goodies..

Then we made the warehouse. We had 12 items to collect and as we learned quite quickly, this was a game of pot luck. Navigating through the busy warehouse with an already laden trolley trying to find the correct aisle and location was a challenge in itself but 6 of our items were out of stock – even a couch that when they had given me the code upstairs was ‘available’ was probably already on someone’s trolley. How frustrating! We were ready to just walk away. By this point you can’t just choose a slightly different colour or model, you would have to go back into the upstairs maze to find the details you needed – at this point, that was not an option!

Another consideration - delivery from Ikea Brooklyn to Manhattan is $100. Could we pay for what we had, and order the others for them to be delivered together – No. Could we pay and you store what had taken us 5 hours to put on our trolleys until we came back for the others – No. Could we order online what was not in stock. Only limited pieces are available online. And any delivery ordered online is $2/pound, which could easily be $200+ for the pieces we had remaining.

I have to point out also, I don’t think we saw a friendly or helpful staff member. I mean it must really suck to work there because they were all miserable. The friendliest people were the delivery guys, but that is outsourced to another company. One poor customer we saw in the warehouse section had been collecting multiple trolleys of flat packs. Obviously shopping on his own, he went to collect something leaving 2 other full trolleys up against a display. When he returned they had been removed and all the stock was being put away! Knowing how long he must have been there already, I nearly cried for him…

As our day turned into night, we decided to take what we had as otherwise it would have been a total waste of a day. Our experience was extended further when the sofa we had to collect from another window after check out arrived and was the wrong one. It was 9.10pm. Can you swap it? No, you need to go (and queue) to the returns window and process an exchange. The returns window was suppose to close at 9. Before we exploded, they did allow us to process our exchange and we managed to get out of there - relationship in tact!

Would I go back? Well, I can’t quite believe it myself but the next weekend we did. As we thought about it during the week, we really wanted to get the pieces that we missed out on so we went back with a plan. This time we were wiser.

Lesson learned – go early, beat the crowds and access the stock they have brought down from the massive shelves overnight. Lucky we did, with 2 of the items, only 2 were available, ½ hour later and they could have been gone.

I’ve decided it’s a love/hate thing people have for IKEA - while people dread going there, they go because it’s cheap. I think the sheer number of people that pass through there everyday means that they don’t need to care about their customer service. Shame on them.

Author notes:

1. My rant is over, but it feels good to have shared it!
2. This relates to my experience at IKEA in Brooklyn, NY.
3. Prior to writing this blog I did write to customer service at IKEA to explain our displeasure – it would have been nice to receive complimentary delivery the second time round. Surprise surprise, there has been no response.

Different to Home

Ever since my first experience in NY, leaving JFK in a taxi that has a touch screen tv for the passenger seat full of useful information, news and entertainment, I knew this city was going to be nothing like what I was used to.  Sensory overload.  I thought I would keep a record to share with you the little things that are so different here and when all added up make me really feel a million miles from home.

• Taps turn different way
• Keys turn opposite way to open/lock
• light switches are up for on and down for off (seriously!)
• Food portions are huge
• A can of coke is $1, cheaper than water which can be up to $6 in bars/restaurants
• Bagels for sale everywhere including most street corners
• They don't know what a toasted sandwich is.  Toasting something means warming in an oven.
• Tampons are generally applicator only
• The chocolate kind of sucks - my favourite so far is Hersheys Cookies and Crème.  Apparently they have Mars Bars here, but I've not found where...
• Spanish is almost as common as English
• The Ben and Jerry's rocks - I'm still working my way through flavours I'd never heard of.  Really is worthy of own blog, stay tuned!
• Bacon - is only what we call the rind and is best served really really crispy.  By chance we found some 'Canadian Bacon' hidden at the back of a supermarket which is more what we are used to but at $9 for 5 pieces it is a weekend treat.
• Still sorting out the phone numbers - sometimes you put a 1 in front, sometimes you don't, very trial and error.  I asked the locals who couldn''t explain it, they just learn to know when you use a 1.
• Banking - checks are still common way to pay for bills etc
• Cell phones - you get charged to receive texts and calls by the min
• They call it ham, but we really know it as spam

Lastly,  the environment - huh??
I've never considered myself to be a 'greenie' but I guess in Australia we have slowly changed our ways to be subconsciously aware of certain environmental issues.  Water conservation. Recycling. Phasing out supermarket plastic bags.  In Manhattan, an island of 8 million people there is no such consciousness.  A plastic bag (usually twice the size of what you are carrying) is given away for every purchase, even the smallest toiletry, a can of drink or sandwich for lunch.  Clearly no need for water conservation, where we were living in the East Village, the taps had to run for 5 mins before the hot water reached us.  And recycling is few and far between.  At my office in Sydney I was used to recycled paper, double sided printing, and recycling bins at every desk.  The office I'm in now has one recycling bin near the printer that I think I'm the only one who uses it (it is conveniently placed behind my desk) and the amount of one sided printing frightens me - maybe I am a closet greenie!

I am trying my best to embrace these differences, not to complain but it has been really difficult... I guess when I stop noticing these things I will have become a true local - there's clearly a long way to go yet!

First time to Broadway

I have so much to write about and have had so little time! The last week or so we have been busy settling into our apartment which has involved much shopping and building of furniture - stories coming soon... But today I just thought I would write about my first visit to a Broadway show.

Ash isn't so keen on going to musicals (can't understand why?) so I plan to convince all our visitors that the one thing they have to do in NY is go to a show - and take me with them :) and, well, last week, our house guest Hoodie bought me a ticket. I have a list of shows I'm keen to see and his choice wasn't one of them (I hadn't even heard of it) but off we went to see the Addam's Family.

http://www.theaddamsfamilymusical.com/

It was pouring rain as I was waiting to meet Hoodie in Times Sq so I sheltered in the giant M&M's store - a ridiculously oversized tourist junk shop (and thats coming from a lover chocolate!). Not having much time before the curtain went up, we gathered with other wet tourists in a tiny pizza shop close to the the theatre and ate a great slice of pepperoni.

Not being a fan of the tv show - am I too old or too young? I thought it was going to be a bit silly - but I thoroughly enjoyed it! I couldn't help myself, the audience was full and up for a fun night and when the opening orchestral line was the famous duduludunk {click click} the whole place clicked their fingers in time - duduludunk CLICK CLICK - and that set the atmosphere. The scenery was great, set in NY Central park, there was a lot of local NY centric jokes and the audience was kept involved slightly pantomime style by Uncle Fester. It is a new show, only opened in April so we had the quality original Broadway cast including Nathan Lane (of "the bird cage" fame) and Bebe Neuwirth (Cheers and Frasier), both Broadway veterans. The music was good, helped along by a Wednesday who belted out impressive tunes and I thought there was a resemblence to the score from Rent, though I'm not an expert!

All up, it was a fun night. I found the audience definitely different to Sydney audiences when sometimes I feel, they like to think they are experts and pick and critisize instead of just enjoy the show. This audience was vibrant and enjoying themselves which was contagious.  Thanks Hoodie!

The search for an apartment - Part II

So I finished Part I as we were heading back to the West Village to see another apartment.  The phone conversation had been something like this:

the dude - I have a great apartment being shown tonight at 7pm if you can come and see it.

me - is it a no fee apartment?

the dude - yes

me - how much is it?

the dude - what is your maximum?

me - well how much is it going for?

the dude - why don't you tell me your maximum, its a great apartment, going to go very quickly (bla bla blah)

me - $x

the dude - oh, well its on for $100 more that that but I'm sure we could negotiate down. Very good landlord, wants good tenant (bla bla blah)

Ok, so we were on our way, I had arranged to meet this guy at some intersection and realised 1/2 way there that I had left my phone at home, oh dear how were we going to find him?  While we were waiting we were getting worried we missed him but with hindsight, how silly of us, of course he would be late. We eventually met him and he wandered us into the apartment.

It was the typical pitch, and I had written it off for some reason (maybe I was just worn out from the search) and so didn't take much notice.  When we got outside and started talking about it, Ash gave me the positives about the place, and comparatively, there were many. Knowing we were running out of time to sort something we decided to go for it.

This story could drag on so I'll keep it brief, basically in 2 different trips we gave a deposit, an application fee and our application with supporting documents.  We agreed to a price (the max $ I had given on the phone) and because we had our dodgy radar blaring I even asked to see their real estate licence.   We were supposed to hear by 3pm Friday if the landlord approved our application, at which time we needed to show up and pay the rest of the upfront costs.   We were keen to hear, because that meant I wouldn't have to continue looking on the Sat.  3pm, nothing.  Ash phones, oh yes, I will call you back in 45 mins.  4pm, nothing.  Ash and I decide it was best to wait to hear from him.  5pm, nothing. Ash phones, oh yes of course, yes you have been approved and I have a deal for you why don't you come to my office and we can talk about it.  Wait - what do you mean a deal?  Well the landlord has reduced the monthly rent but (wait for it....) there's now going to be a fee. How much is the fee.  Oh, lets not talk about it on the phone, come down to see me and we can go through it.

When Ash phoned me, I was furious - the cheek of the guy!!! I was ready to say go stick yourself just for the principle and he had gotten under our skin as a sleazy, unreliable, smooth talking guy.  We worked how much we were willing to pay, in order to work out even over the 12 month period, and we went in and had to negotiate with the guy.  Ash did really well.  I think there was smoke coming out my ears! But we did walk out having signed a lease.  All up a good result.

To finish the story off, Mr dude promised us an air-con unit and that he would try to get us in to the apartment a few days early.  He came through with neither and is always difficult to track down.  I had a small doubt if we would get the keys at all, but we made contact with the super (24 hour caretaker of the building) last weekend and she at least knew we were coming which made us feel better.

We moved in this week.  I hadn't remembered how big it was - at least it seems that way but we don't own any furniture yet.  How lovely it was to sleep for the first night on our new bed.  Now its just time to clean and do some serious shopping!  This weekend - an important purchase, a TV :)

A New York weekend

We have had such a great weekend.  It is the Memorial Day long weekend and we have had our first visitors from Aus here to hang out.  And hang out we have!

Friday night
We meet Ash's friends, who have come to us in the East Village, in our favourite local bar.  Quite a random, small bar that attracts a diverse custom, they have happy hour and a buy1 get 1 free drinks offer - definitely the cheapest drinks we'll have all weekend.   We then went on to a restaurant on the lower East side called Freemans.  Ash and I had eaten there a week ago and enjoyed the food and atmosphere and thought the boys would like it too.  (Not to mention that Ash thought they would also like the waitress!).  A great night of catching up and red wine :)

Saturday
Yummy brunch including hamburgers and fries for the boys,  I went the cream cheese on bagel option but with some home fried potatoes on the side.  This was followed by the boys going for an old fashioned blade shave that left PJ a bit bloody.  Then we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and wandered around the area called Dumbo on the other side.

At 5.30 we met at the Port Authority bus station for our journey into New Jersey to see the Bon Jovi concert at the newly built Meadowlands stadium.  We almost needed oxygen tanks we were so high up but what a great atmosphere with 70,000 plus fans enjoying some classics like Dead or Alive.  It was  strange to see many people in the car park with deck chairs, eskies and bbq's, they had obviously been there all day, I'm not positive but I wonder if they actually just stayed outside and listened to the concert from there?

Sunday
Another yummy brunch, this time a little more gourmet, only one of the boys went for a burger and fries!  I had the most scrumptious lemon and ricotta pancakes smothered in maple syrup.  It all went down very well with our 2 jugs of sangria!

Brunch was just the warm up, this time we got on the subway and went out to the Bronx and Yankee Stadium for an afternoon of baseball.  I learned loads about the game, by the end of the 9th inning even knew most of what was going on.  The beers nearly killed us cheap aussies at, wait for it, $10 a beer!!  We had great fun sitting in the bleechers (I didn't know until now that this means sitting on long benches as opposed to individual chairs - probably the equivalent of the old hill at the SCG - the cheap seats), bought the caps, met some locals, tried the really awful chicken tenders and fries that were cooked 6 hours earlier and cost me $10.50, and best of all, in the 7th inning, the Yankees scored 5 runs and won the game to the cries of the ecstatic crowd.

I left the boys at a beer garden for a bit of quiet time and met up with them later for dinner in China Town.  We completely overate but enjoyed the meal including a whole duck being delivered to us for peking duck pancakes.  We wandered for a bit afterward into Little Italy which was pumping and then into a dodgy street fair that included alley games where you win cheap stuffed animals.  We got roped into what turned out to be the most dodgy stall which was a complete hustle - you had to roll some small balls onto a board of numbers which the guy would add up and would correspond to another number.  After the 2 first free rolls he tried to tell us our results were mega lucky and that we would win an xBox or playstation if we kept playing but after spending $15 we all agreed to walk away...

Monday
No time for brunch this morning, we grabbed a bagel on the run as we were meeting at 9.30 to go on the Circle line 3 hour tourist cruise around Manhattan.  It was a perfect sunny day and we slapped on the sunscreen as we waited to leave the dock.  What a great way to see the sights including the best views of the Statue of Liberty and get a comprehensive commentary on New York.

When we finished we were right beside the massive USS Iwo Jima, a US Marines aircraft carrier so we took the opportunity to join the queue and go aboard.  We couldn't see the whole queue and we didn't know it would take us nearly 2 hours until we reached the gang plank in the heat, but it was worth the wait.  In town for Memorial Day and the associated Fleet week we were able to climb over tanks, missile launchers, harrier jets and helicopters.  You can imagine Ash was in his element and as a regular watcher of the military channel was able to provide all sorts of details along the way.

It was great to meet the Marines, they were very polite and very particular about answering any questions with full detail.  It also occurred to us as they showing off the million dollar toys that they were so very young and had already completed multiple deployments including Iraq.

Phew - what a weekend - I'm exhausted!
I have left the boys alone for dinner tonight as I have to be at work for a 7am call in the morning!